O której kawa?!https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress
About motherhood, friendship, womanhood... and about coffeeWed, 06 Mar 2019 19:19:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.3https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cropped-białe-1-32x32.jpgO której kawa?!https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress
3232What workouts to choose and how to exercise?https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2600&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2600&lang=en#respondThu, 03 May 2018 07:34:30 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2600I think that one of the things that cause us to give up exercises and start to eat unhealthily again is, apart from laziness, monotony! When we learn all the exercises by heart, we know their length, we know the order of exercises, we stop feeling excitement and, consequently, interest in the entire training. If one of the first set of exercises is not your favorite, you don’t even want to start.

That’s why diversity is the key! Fortunately, we live in times when we have unlimited access to training materials on the web. Online stores are full of items with ready-made sets of exercises, and the coaches themselves are becoming more willingly available on their websites, fanpages or YouTube channels to provide new programs. Our beloved Ewa Chodakowska, Tomasz Choiński, Anna Lewandowska, Gillian Michaels (I love her!), Mel B, they all have channels full of videos with exercises. Meanwhile, many women buy one CD and stick to it only until they can’t stand it!

I started with creating my own playlist with various sets. There were very intense cadrios, interval trainings, pilates, yoga, workouts with dumbbells, on the stepper, and ball training sessions. I gathered a whole lot of them. I never really have a training plan for the whole week, I choose spontaneously every day, depending on my mood. I know them all, so I know very well what I want in a particular moment. I don’t always have time for an hour of training, so sometimes I choose those 20-minute, and in really busy days, even 10-minute training must sometimes be enough for me. I try, however, never to let go (days without any training also happen, though very rarely). I’m a real crazy person when it comes to exercises, I can exercise at midnight to feel better, although I have already written that this is not the best idea, because it results in a sleepless night, haha.

Saturdays and Sundays are running days, the only ones in a week when I have time before noon, and this is the best time for me to run. My constant distance is 6 kilometers. If there is an extremely favorable air, and I don’t have to hurry, I run 10K, although I know that long distances are not good for my knee joints (again – I listen to my body!), So I rarely do such long distances and always after a long distance I do at least one day off from training, so that the body can regenerate. The best thing about running is that I literally feel that my body is still working long after the run, so it’s a lot more than just a few tens of minutes of training!

Spring has already begun, so the motivation to exercise is a lot bigger! I love exercising on the terrace. My dogs are basking in the sun on the grass then and they are just waiting for me to come to the “cool down” exercise, or relax after training. This is the moment when I don’t get nervous when someone runs around me and let them cuddle up. Training in the yard also allows me to keep an eye on the kids, if they are running around the garden, so I literally don’t “waste time”.

The basic thing – you must reject any EXCUSES! Ewka is a living proof that even a breastfed baby doesn’t have to stop you from being active! Of course, it is much easier when you have the support of someone who will take care of children from time to time if you want to run. Don’t break down, however, and don’t give up, if such a person is not around – running can be replaced by a different form of training, a long conscious walk is also a great form of activity!

If you ask me to find excuses, I will give you the whole bunch of them: lack of time, menstruation, bad weather, work to do in the garden, the need to watch the show, headache, lack of desire, lack of space, lack of exercise clothes, no mat, lack of appropriate shoes, etc. I know it’s much easier to find reasons NOT TO… When I started my daily exercises, I didn’t have either a mat or proper outfit, appropriate shoes, and time was always lacking. I bought the first exercise mat after 2 months of training, earlier I did exercises on a carpet. I started running only six months after the first training, because running shoes must be suitable. The shoes were my first major expense. “Santa” brought me a stepper for Christmas, and a few perfect fitness outfits, a year later he added a decent mat. But even without this, I would still be active!

There are definitely more reasons to invest in yourself – great well-being, much more energy, better mood, better silhouette, smaller size of clothes, more power to play with kids, proving to myself that I can do a lot more than I thought before, HEALTH!

Spring is already here, it’s a great moment to change

See my other entries in this section, there’s a little more about running, healthy eating and fitness motivation!

]]>https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=26000Appreciating life :-)…https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2251&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2251&lang=en#respondSun, 25 Feb 2018 19:00:13 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2251It’s well past midnight, and I can’t sleep. My head is full of memories right now, I don’t know why. Maybe something or someone is trying to persuade me to write these words. Perhaps they will be helpful to someone who reads them? I don’t know. So I keep on writing…

Nothing in our lives happens without a purpose, although we often get the impression that it’s completely without cause. The older I am, the more often I discover the reasons why specific experiences have affected me. I understand more and more clearly the meaning of events that occurred in my life, the role of the people I met on my way. It’s like I’m gradually getting another parts of the puzzle that fits into a whole.

The longer I am on this planet, the more I recall from the old days. It’s probably normal – my mother once told me that the older she gets, the more distant memories come to her mind. I also get the impression that I now remember events that I have erased from my memory, or I forgot about them just after they happened. And now it turns out that these individual events have had a key impact on how my life’s been going and how it looks today.

I’m grateful for every acquaintance: from my school friends and playground friends (I’m happy I keep in touch with them today – they are extraordinary people), through my sister’s friends, brothers’ and parents’, my aunts from whom I have learned a lot, to my “exes”, colleagues and platonic loves. Everyone contributed to who I am.

My high school days were a difficult time for me. At times I lost sense of life, I had long-lasting “feeling-blue” periods. It wasn’t easy in my family home. I think that the bond I always had with my mother helped me to survive difficult moments.

My grandmother was also a shoulder to cry on …

When she suddenly passed away, I couldn’t come to terms with it for a long time. Even during the funeral, I didn’t realize that I was saying goodbye to my grandma. I think I understood the fact that she left forever only a few years after her death. And today I miss her immensely! I regret that I can’t share my ordinary, sometimes monotonous everyday life with my grands.

When my grandmother died I was in graduation class. I remember sharing with her my plans for the future, I said that I wanted to study English philology. Her first reaction to my plans are words that I still keep in my head whenever I encounter difficulties and they motivate me to act: “What an insane idea, Oluchna (this is how my grandparents used to call me), how do you think it will be possible for you to study?! Who’s going to pay for it?” I used to regret for a long time that she didn’t make it to see my diploma of graduation and that she couldn’t learn that I had become a teacher. Now more and more often I think that since she died, together with my grandfather, they watched over my life and that I actually completed my education with a master degree because of them! 🙂 I hope they are proud of me …

I’m not a religious person. But I’d be lying if I said that I don’t feel someone’s care “from above”. What’s more, I start to realize that my life began to gradually become in a way “perfectly built” just after my grandparents passed away. I was their beloved granddaughter. If they had such a possibility, they certainly wouldn’t resist the temptation to guide me in the right direction, haha.

At that time (when my grandmother died) I had a beloved boyfriend. Although I decided not to share my future with him, I’m convinced that he helped me to keep balance, supported me after my grandmother’s death, taught me many things, and helped me understand a lot. I’m so grateful to him, though I know I will never tell him about it. And the fact that I didn’t become his wife (though we did make such plans), perhaps also “due to” my grandparents (;-)), made us both have happy lives with our loved ones today, although when we were still kids it may have seemed to us that such a breakup was a catastrophe.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know that 12 years ago I married a man who is the love of my life. A lot of events in the lives of my relatives led to our first meeting. Today I understand that a different course of even one of them could have such an effect that I would have never met my husband!

And yet I have a wonderful family today. And a rich life. Rich, because it’s full of wonderful feelings, wonderful people around, full of passion and still giving me freedom to pursue my own plans. My life is also full of love. I enjoy every bit of it and taste every moment. You just have to. It’s not worth looking at life through the prism of gray, monotonous everyday life or unpleasant events, although I know that every, even the most difficult experience enriches our personality. I prefer, however, to focus on what is good. I know that every moment matters, so I try not to waste time on meaningless activities. Awareness of how much accidental events, accidentally met people, randomly spoken words affect our future obliges me to appreciate what life brings to me.

These little things I write about are as big as they are. Unusually normal.

Nothing happens without a reason. Really.

]]>https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=22510A very imperfect mother.https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2235&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2235&lang=en#respondSat, 24 Feb 2018 16:34:08 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2235I got up early today, thanks to Dominik. He woke up before 8 because he wanted to go downstairs. Then he fell asleep and I made some coffee and I have time for myself. I drink coffee and listen if Weronika is not crying. I Enjoy every sip, because it may be my last this morning. I think that every mother sitting at home at this time in the morning watches DDTVN (a Polish morning tv show). I watch, but I don’t listen too much, I enjoy my coffee and I enjoy silence. Oh, yes, the silence is the most pleasant sound since I became a mother, and my children’s naps are the most pleasant part of the day for me. I think about it as soon as the kids open their eyes. I think about when I can relax from them again, when they stop shouting, lamenting, asking for sth over and over again, when they stop jumping and asking me questions, when they finally get away from me and when I can finally rest during the day.

I am so far from being an ideal mother, a perfect mother, a smiling mother, a mother without problems. But there are so many “perfect mothers” on social media. They show the world their perfect lives, their perfect children and perfect husbands. Their children are always smiling and are clean, their toys in no way resemble my children’s toys. Their husbands are also always smiling, with a great desire to pose for photos, they don’t hesitate to play with children, and go with the whole family for holidays. There are also those who happily carry their wives in their arms and report on their family weekends like teenagers. And finally, there is SHE – THE IDEAL MOTHER – happy mother, enjoying motherhood, looking like she just came out of the beautician’s and hairdresser’s, working professionally, caring for the house which is always perfectly clean. A mother who makes breakfasts, lunches and dinners for her family every day, always with a smile on her face. A mother, or rather a woman who always wants and is ready to make love to her ideal husband. Ideal families – I think only such exist in today’s society, in this virtual world …

I belong to those unbelievers who don’t fully buy this perfect world, although I wish such perfect life to everyone. I’m not in my teens anymore and I know how real life looks like. I know that my children often get bored with me, that they don’t always go clean because I don’t feel like getting them changed a few times a day. My husband doesn’t look forward to returning home from work, doesn’t run to hug me, his posing for family photos rarely works, that’s why you don’t see him on the web, we often argue because some things overwhelm us, because we don’t have time for ourselves and for each other, because I tend to cavil at things …. It happens that I cavil at everything, even the fact that he made me a sandwich with pate and butter and not just the pate (in my opinion, it’s pate OR butter, not both, although we all know that with butter it is tastier), but I have to do my talk. Although I don’t consider myself as a fatal mother, I’m not perfect (although I seem to be rather a perfect mother than perfect wife anyway). And although I feel lonely with my unbelievable motherhood more than once in a while, I don’t fool myself, I don’t picture myself as someone who I am not, I don’t pretend. And although it may seem unacceptable to some “ideal people”, I really don’t want to talk about children (I know how it ends) when I’m at a meeting with my girlfriends! Every day I am a “normal” girl in my twenties, with my husband and my children on my side, but this is what you may already know from my other entries. We are ordinary family with our ordinary issues, but it’s good for us.

]]>https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=22350Why should our kids be taught tolerance?https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2087&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2087&lang=en#respondThu, 01 Feb 2018 18:19:51 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=2087I’m an optimist and I’m naive. Some may consider this infantile, and it’s a little odd at my age. Others see me as someone who looks at the world through pink glasses. I’m in favor of the second attitude, although glasses are often not as rosy as before. Still, the glass is tinted with a filter, which is why whatever is happening, I always assume it will all be fine.

I’ve been the same girl for over 30 years, but some time ago I started to look at the world, people, life, much more critically. Seemingly still optimistic, as it used to be, but with a greater distance to what is good and with great sensitivity towards what is bad. I have children, so all the tragedies in the world that I hear about touch me much more than they used to. I often wonder if I can do something to make the world a little better as an individual. However, noticing the fleeing time, I also often think if there’s anything I can teach my children that would help to improve the reality in which they live.

I used to blame religions for the world conflicts, believing that they are the cause of disputes and hatred. Then, however, I understood that this approach was wrong because it discriminated against people who find happiness and sense of life in faith. It’s not religions, politics or diversity of cultures that are the cause of conflicts among people. It’s THE LACK OF TOLERANCE to what others think, or do, how they live and what they believe in that is the cause of all the evil in the world. And it can be said with all fairness that we won’t be able to repair the world alone. And yet, it is us – the parents – that have power to make great difference. How? Let’s start with teaching our children TOLERANCE. If today every parent decided not to spread prejudices, hatred, discrimination in their own homes in the presence of their children, in a dozen or so years we would have a completely new society full of happy people! It sounds like a utopia. I know, I read what I’m writing;) I see my naivety…

I’ve always had the same views. In the past, however, I reacted differently to good and bad information. I ignored those negative ones, and I looked for the second bottom in the good news. As a result, I had no influence even on my own reality, and I was still stuck in anxiety. Today I no longer ignore the lack of tolerance and the language of hatred. When I hear that my friends, relatives, or other people speak the language of anger and intolerance, I get very nervous. However, I try not to answer with anger. Sometimes I just kill them with silence, sometimes I answer calmly. It happens that I loudly repeat their words with the conviction that if they hear what they said from other person’s lips, they will get the content they’ve articulated and maybe they will feel irritated by their own behavior. When I hear the words of anger, hatred and lack of understanding, I realize that the same words spoken by influential people, those “in power”, lead to tragic world conflicts. Hatred is always triggered by lack of tolerance and anger. Therefore, we must teach ourselves, but above all, our children respect for all people’s diversity. I dream about the subject called TOLERANCE to be introduced to schools …

Recently, my son attended a movie trip with other students. They watched the movie “Wonder”. I’m grateful to their educators and the people who organized this trip. My son came back from the theater delighted. When he told me the content of the film with details, he added: “Mom, you would’ve liked this film very much, because you are a terrible optimist!” So I was pleased that he liked the film about diversity, the effects of hatred and about tolerance, and that he is such an optimist, just like me …;) I believe that although people don’t change, you can try to change their way of looking at others Let’s start with our children. I believe that parents who teach their children tolerance and respect for other people are wiser parents than those who don’t. “Live and let live” is probably a good rule to start with.;)

That’s how my daughter commented on my effort during mu daily workout today. Natalka was born with Williams Syndrome. One of the characteristic features of this syndrome of congenital ‘defects’ is unusual emotional sensitivity and honesty in expressing opinions, which are often very direct. Another feature of people with WS is their willingness to please others. That’s why when Natalka says such things to me, I know that she says what she really means, or if she doesn’t speak honestly – she wants to please me in a heartfelt compliment at all costs. Anyway, this (her words) is the best acknowledgement that I’m doing the right thing dedicating these tens of minutes to my training every day! I wouldn’t ask for a better reward!.

I once saw a photo of a young woman working out at home in a “plank” position, and she’s secretly being observed by a little girl, most probably her daughter. The picture is signed like this: “I was going to give up when I noticed who was watching…” It’s one of my favorite pictures, I still have it on my mind. We tend to say we exercise for ourselves, for health, for staying in good shape. But, damn, no! – all this fuss about sport, healthy eating, sweat on my back – it’s all to give a good example. Not to the world, but to my children – I want to be a role model for them.

My daughter will have to overcome many obstacles in her life. And I know that each time it will be much harder for her than for her peers. And I don’t have enough knowledge and no experience to properly prepare her for these challenges. I can only teach her self-confidence, conviction about her own uniqueness, ways of finding strength, the ability to overcome adversities. I can also teach her self-love and hope that all this will prevent her from breaking down of cruel judgments of others, nagging of her colleagues at school, or ignorance.

How will I do it? By showing good example. I will teach my daughter how to overcome difficulties by showing her my own struggle with exhaustion and my pride at the end of my physical exercise. Of course, training is not only literal but also symbolic. It is a great analogy of crossing with life: seemingly difficult and unfair (“why can’t I just do classic crunches all the time?!”), but also from the beginning to the end (with the right attitude) nursing, giving sense, raising circulation , giving happiness!

In addition, my workouts are small challenge compared to challenges of her every day. My success in the form of a smaller size of clothes or a firmer body is nothing compared to her results (still good!) at school that she achieves despite her inborn dysfunctions! I know that each year her education will be more and more difficult. But I also know that she will do well if she learns to be systematic and persistent, and if she believes in herself.

That’s why when I think of giving up training I remember who’s looking at me! And now, writing these words, I analyze the first 11 years of my daughter’s life, her attempts to be “normal”, attempts to be noticed, attempts to meet our expectations (unconscious and unintentional, but often overambitious), requirements of her teachers and peers, and I wonder…. who’s actually looking at me? A student… or a coach?

I imagine myself in a new car, silver, preferably in the SUV version (I’m a woman, the brand is secondary – it’s important that the color matches the gray coat, though the black would look better in a silver car). I see myself putting my sun glasses on and while doing this I brush my manicured fingers with perfectly stylized nails through my shimmering hair that is shiny from new hair dye. When I get out of the car and walk in the parking lot, my long coat makes a very elegant cloak worn over a new emerald golf that makes my neck look longer and it contours the bottom line of my face. I have leather gloves attached to a large black office bag. There is nothing to find fault with: I look like a million dollars and in this vision I have a million dollar bank account!

Although the account volume and the new car are an absolute fantasy, the rest is a real image of myself, which I design in my head every evening with hope and even the intention that the next day I will stylize myself like that before going to work. And then I go to sleep. In the morning reality seems to be a little different and less sophisticated. After I get the kid’s outfits ready, prepare breakfast for them, wake them up, make the beds and watch their morning toilet, I have neither time nor needs for creating my own image … I put on what is comfortable and warm. And then I put on the old coat, grab the frayed handbag and get into my old dirty Renault Megane (I won’t clean it myself, and finding 15 minutes to get to the car wash is the entire logistics operation!), I try not to get stained by opening car door, I’m setting off and at the same time I’m coming back to reality: I am a 35-year-old mummy living in the village and still don’t have the time and resources to look like a younger version of Claudia Schiffer!

I still hide the scratched nail-polish in my boots, and my undone hand manicure in woolen gloves, and the most tasteful elegance I can afford are high-heeled shoes – when I’m taller, I feel a bit closer to the stars!

My graduate students reminded me today about the Saturday prom – they saved me from embarrassment in case I forgot about their prom and didn’t come, and then burn of shame for wasting their money they had to pay for my participation! I’m also glad that they reminded me that it’s time to pull myself together, dye my gray roots, paint nails and buy some high heels! I will “dress up” again as a dandy girl, I will pretend to be a younger, more confident, complex, richer version of me. I think I need it to keep my balance – every day I am an ordinary village woman who stubbornly tries to play all her roles: a mothers, wife, a teacher, a blogger, a sportswoman, a cook, a friend, and yet a perfect housewife! I often run with a floorcloth all over the house wearing a “potato bag”, which is the costume that suits me, a country girl, best.

I think I’ve just realized why I wanted to start this blog – to be able to stylize myself from time to time like a businesswoman and transfer my visions into camera lens. In some photos we (me and Ewka) really look like LADIES

Ewka:

So another boring day of my life has begun. Again, I promised myself that I would get up earlier, drink warm coffee and calmly pick up the messages, and reply to emails. These were the plans I made yesterday after a long bath, dressed in my pajamas (which consists of wide trousers and sleeveless shirts, but makes me feel comfortable). That’s how I look the most often in the evening. This is one of my so-called “home outfit”, or the clothes of „a mother sitting at home”. The second outfit is an old tracksuit or leggings, sweatshirt, and messy hair. They are usually unwashed, because I always plan to get up early and wash them in the morning. It’s long after 9. My plans have been ruined by „a night war” with Weronika (my 1-year-old daughter). I woke up after 6 and went to sleep again!!! When I woke up later the only new thing I saw was the snow outside the window. Besides this, nothing new. I got up upstairs, did Weronika’s morning toilet, dressed the „mother sitting at home” outfit, opened the windows, kicked the night dirty pampers down, made myself a cup of coffee and breakfast and waited as the day rolled. There’s a chance I will drink my coffee calmly if Weronika doesn’t come up with something I don’t expect. The only thing that I did for myself as a woman was to brush my teeth and do a quick basic eye make-up. I still have a hairstyle that is characteristic of the “mother sitting at home”.

As you can see I’m far from the image of an ideal mother who always looks perfect. Sometimes I think that I pose for a well-groomed lady in the pictures, and in fact I could envy the style of “other mothers sitting at home”! And although I know that we have a beautiful look in full make-up, I’m putting on the content of my beauty bag only for special occasions. That’s when I put on a gown, and even if I give it up, I put on my high-heeled shoes. I’m crazy about shoes. And the hills, as you know, add femininity. So I leave my comfortable shoes at home for the time being, and I put on heels when I go out (also when I go out with children). This makes me look a bit closer to the image of me that I’ve always wanted to present!

We often surf on other blogs related to motherhood. We draw inspiration from other entries, join in discussions, learn from other women. Unfortunately, we often come across texts that are only in theory FOR WOMEN. Sadly they are actually AGAINST THEM …

We live in a reality with no room for imperfections, almost everyone wants to be a role model, often ignoring people who don’t want to be perfect at all. We only accept our own image of the world and we take away the right to decide about themselves from others. We don’t pay attention to others, unless there is an opportunity for “emotional vomit” in a burning discussion under a blog post. Then we find a victim, someone to bristle with rage at, build up our ego by presenting ourselves as a better human model. Unfortunately, this problem mainly concerns mothers, especially now – in times of never-ending discussions on internet forums. “Perfect mothers” who (without blinking an eye) criticize other mothers: one for having children by C-section; the second one for feeding the baby with milk from the bottle; the third one for returning to work instead of staying with the child at home; and for many other behaviors or decisions which, after all, are holy right of each of us! Why are there so many venoms in women? Shouldn’t we instead stick together!? Why do we assume that other women need this barrage of scriticism from us?! Why shoot tongues and impose that breastfeeding mothers are in any way better than others?! Why undervalue “bottle mothers”, suggesting they have “little to do” around their babies? Why repeat over and over again how the child is dependent to the (breastfeeding) mother, and how those mothers are slaves of their children, and how those mothers are holy martyrs, and bottle-feeding mothers aren’t (or the other way round)?! Can’t we simply share our experience instead of bargaining which one of us cares more for our children?!
Why are women so rarely able to talk to each other without making accusations? Why is it so difficult for us to accept FREEDOM and individual choices of each of us? We often don’t know the realities of the other side, and yet we must put our proverbial “pennies” into the basket of hate against another mother who dared to choose a different model of motherhood from us.
Girls! We all know that each of us is the queen of her home, but outside there is enough room in the world for each of us! We don’t need to EXCLUDE each other, we can simply show SUPPORT

]]>https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=19250The strength in the duet!https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1786&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1786&lang=en#respondTue, 09 Jan 2018 13:12:10 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1786EWKA
It was probably December. A message from Olka: “What time’s the coffee?! – what do you think about it?”

I thought: she wants us to start a cafe. Great idea! Where I would get the money from?! With my maternity benefit?!?! Then I started thinking how to explain my worries to Olka… It’s just impossible! When she decides on something, there’s no way you can knock it out of her head! Fortunately, she quickly explained what she had in mind – it was a blog’s name. A blog??? What for? What was I supposed to write about and who would read it?! I had never been a fan of bloggers myself.

Fortunately, she managed to convince me and I don’t regret it! However, although we are both proud today of the way we have so far worked together, we admit that it has been a kind of a bumpy road… Today, a few months after the premiere of oktorejkawa.com, it turns out that we have quite a different view on what was planned and what we have accomplished 🙂 But let’s go back to the beginning…

DETERMINATION

Ewka
We must be the most unprofessional bloggers, at the same time we are real risk takers: in fact, when we started we didn’t have any plan. We only knew that we wanted to write about friendship, motherhood and house keeping. We had no idea about IT, ‘hosting’ and ‘domain’ were words we completely didn’t understand.

But we wanted to write. We were also subconsciously hoping that it would pay off and let us earn. Back then we thought it would be easy. We now know that focusing only on making money is a fundamental mistake many bloggers commit. The reader is the subject and it should be focused on him.
When we started, we had the first few entries ready. Just for the beginning, so that readers could get to know us better. When we launched the site, for the first month we showed up on peoplel’s facebook wall every day with links to new entries. They probably have had enough of us sometimes. However, we thought ot was a big boom for us! We wanted to write as much as we could and get as many visits to the site as possible. We kept thinking about numbers. During the first week we had 1000 visits a day, and we expected dozens of them. These numbers motivated us to spread wings and we wrote a lot.
Then there were moments of doubt – there were days when not more than 50 people visited us. We were beginning to wonder what we were doing wrong, our self-esteem was at times falling heavily. Fortunately for me, these were only moments, because I was usually proud, even if there weren’t 1000 entries a day. I believe it is worth writing even for one reader.

Olka
The most difficult thing for me was to define my main goal. I’d known for a long time that I wanted to have my blog (because I always have a lot to say what my loved ones know very well), but It was hard for me to decide what about.
If, at the beginning, I had clearly defined my goal, it would have certainly been much easier for us both to organize our work. The blog itself as a goal was accomplished relatively quickly, and yet it was just the beginning of our adventure. So I told myself that we would design i (blog), write a few texts and then see what happens. And it was undoubtedly a mistake, because the first texts were about everything and nothing at the same time, which made it difficult for us to identify the recipients, and thus we couldn’t plan the promotion well. As a result, we lost a lot of potential readers and we had to face the first big drop in the number of visits to our website in just a few weeks after the start!

FIGHTING FEAR, COLLISION WITH THE OPINION OF OTHERS

Olka:
I think I have prepared myself well for judgments. The opinion of other people is important to me only if it is the opinion of my loved ones, and if it is constructive and I need it. In all the other cases the opinions of others regarding my business don’t matter to me.

Why? Because no one knows better than me what I need, nobody else walks my way or wears my shoes. If I fail, I have to face it myself, and if I win, it is my success. Why, then, should I take into account what others say. If they knew better than me, they would deal with similar activities themselves. Taking other people’s opinions seriously would have made us give up at the very beginning. Because no one except for us and a few supporters believed in what we were doing. Good for us – it motivated us even more!

The only dilemma was how much of our private life we ​​could uncover. Therefore, at the beginning, we set the limits, taking into account the welfare of our loved ones and ourselves. Sometimes we let ourselves be carried away by emotions, especially in entries about relationships with our husbands. Then, fortunately, we had each other and together we decided about what was within the boundaries we set before.

Every text that has finally been made public is fully accepted by us, also in retrospect. It does not mean that it has always been easy. Sometimes we wanted to describe interesting family stories, which our husbands and children didn’t agree to make public, and although it was difficult to refrain from sharing it with the readers we had to be respectful to our families.

Some, however, criticized us for being too open, but at the same time they were eager to read what we “revealed” . For us it didn’t matter, because it was the idea of ​​showing other women like us that they are not alone in their everyday struggles. And if we received feedback and cordial words of thanks, no critic could discourage us. Sometimes we feel that we are writing in someone’s name, although we write about our own experiences. And then we know that it is worth to go against the wind 😉

Ewka
“What will they think of me?” In the end, all readers will come to my house, meet my children, my husband, our relationship…

Many people have tried to discourage us from this idea. We heard rumors that some of our acquaintances preferred to avoid meeting us for fear of “being gossiped about on the blog.” It seemed very unfair, but we didn’t bother thinking about it because we had a clear conscience in this matter. I didn’t care about what others think about me. Of course, I respected their opinions, but I did my job. We live in a small town, we are not anonymous here. However, privacy is something that I have a lot of respect for in my life, so both “before the blog” and now I clearly set the limits. It’s me who decides what I describe, that’s why I protect the realms that I consider intimate from the world. I think it’s quite good for me, I don’t feel remorse. I don’t do anything against myself or my closest, the purpose of our texts is never to offend anyone.

LOGO, PAGE, PHOTOS

Olka:
We have heard many times: “you can’t” – so we learned. We heard: “you aren’t …” – so we decided to ‘be’. We heard: “you don’t have” – ​​so we saved money to get eguipment .

We knew we had to learn everything by ourselves. We didn’t have financial sources to start and if we couldn’t hire professionals, we did their job ourselves. We learned about techniques, principles, methods, etc., for hours, days and nights … We made a lot of mistakes, for some we pay today. And we’re still learning.
We designed the logo of our blog “O której kawa?! for weeks! At the beginning, we only had this slogan. Then we looked for most apropriate color among dozens of similar colors. Then the font – we wondered between modest and simple, and elegant and complicated. We chose the simple, unpretentious letters on a white background. The logo was supposed to have a fashionable color, but one that we like and associate well, and one that will be practical for our products. Everything seemed to be ready, we learned to use the program, our friend, an IT specialist helped us a little with specific digital features of the logo. However, it is still not enough to be able to face the ruthless market, so we still have a lot of work to do.

Now, however, it is much easier for us because we already know how much we can do with the strength of our duo, sometimes we only need more time 😉
We also created the original website oktorejkawa.com by ourselves. We are not computer programmers, we have no idea about computer graphics, so creating a website was a real challenge. We worked at nights, and the anger of our families gave us a hard time in the final stages of creating the site. Here, again, mistakes couldn’t be avoided, which is why we had to transfer the entire content of the blog to a new content management system (WordPress). Fortunately, my dear brother and our friendly computer scientist dealt with the matter of hosting and domain, so at least everything works here.
We also entrusted the starter photos to the blog to professionals who managed to create our profile image and photos that welcome our guests in the HOME page.

Every time when I’m down because of low popularity of an entry, or subsequent technical turbulence, I recall how many problems we have managed to solve so far and this motivates me to move forward. It’s a bit like a domino effect, in a positive sense

TEXTS ARE FOR FREE, MUGS ARE FOR SALE 😉

Olka
Shortly after the premiere of the blog we decided to create a gadget that would be directly associated with us. We designed coffee mugs. We wondered whether to focus on price or quality. We chose the second one. And while the mugs don’t sell well, we are sure that we give our readers a solid product that will serve them for years. At the same time we build trust in our personal brand “O której kawa?!”.

So far, we haven’t released other products yet, it is still too early, although we have many ideas. Everything is ahead of us, we try to be well prepared, we don’t want to suffer further losses at this stage, that’s why we keep getting experience, analyze information that we get from sour readers and follower and try to plan carefully. “Mug discomfiture” taught us a lot, haha ​​

Ewka
The introduction of our blog product has been our biggest financial defeat so far! We focused on quality and it costs. We should have considered Polish reality: loans, household maintenance, children, these are big costs. Few people are willing to buy products from beginner bloggers. Olka assumed: “if we try hard, we will sell it all”. But we have launched the coffe mugs completely without preparation. We didn’t even do market research! It in fact didn’t matter that the mugs were made of solid high quality material – still few people were interested in such a purchase. We had to make a couple of big promotions so that the sales would start. It’s still not doing very well, so we will have arrange more promotions, which will generate more costs for us.

So my good advice to everybody who ‘s planning to introduce a product for sale is: do good businesslike market research!!!

FITNESS WAS NOT PLANNED

Ewka and Olka
At the beginning, we didn’t plan to devote so much attention to physical exercises. We were supposed to focus on motherhood and friendship. However, we quickly discovered that our perseverance in daily fitness is very much in tune with the fact that we still want to develop. We noticed how much sport affects our mood, well-being and consistency in pursuing goals. We just couldn’t ignore it. “O której kawa?!” is in large part fitness that accompanies us every day, it supports our care of ourselves, is a driving force for our healthy lifestyle. And this in turn perfectly harmonizes with the content of our entries, treating mostly about “healthy and conscious motherhood”
Our bodies have changed, we feel much better and we look better. The effects of our training can be seen with the naked eye. We know that we infected other moms with passion for exercise and it fills us with great pride! It also makes us see the sense of our business, even when our husbands are sarcastic reminding us that our business isn’t the best way to earn money!

“O której kawa?!” (“What time’s the coffee”) has is still a long way to go. We know more and more about the interests and needs of our readers and try to meet their expectations. This has become our goal, hence we have taken over the page rebuilding, and we are carefully analyzing the topics that appear on the blog. Above all, however, we are still here to make it easier for other women like us!

Ewka
The blog has changed me, it allowed me to look differently at people and the reality around me. Maybe it’s generalities, but I’m a different person today. At the beginning I wasn’t confident, I didn’t even talk about what I was creating with Olka. Today I talk about the blog with pride! Olka:
And I am proud to sign what Ewka wrote with my both hands!

We are proud to present you a totally new website, we’ve worked on it for weeks. We hope you like it!

]]>https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=17860No mercy! A post about us…https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1659&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1659&lang=en#respondSat, 06 Jan 2018 08:48:33 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1659Emotions took over me! I needed time to calm down, stop swearing (my relatives know how well I can do that!) and cool my emotions, let my feelings speak. My mood is still bad, so I believe writing this entry will clear my air a little.

How many times do we hear stories about someone’s failure? They are accompanied by comments: “it’s good for him!”, “She’s to be blamed for her own loss …”, “so he miscalculated…!”. Have you noticed how often they are lined with a note of satisfaction? – after all, somebody’s failure is a great topic to talk about at a party, chatter, jam the silence with gossip, feed your boredom. Then there’s a fake “I don’t wish a bad luck to anyone, but … (I give them the stink eye…)”

People! We’re losing a gigantic amount of energy only to please ourselves with someone’s misfortune for a moment. We don’t think that this approach to others’ failure doesn’t transform in any way into our success. It brings absolutely nothing to our lives!!!

And if all this bad energy would be converted to a desire to offer help, not material, but emotional. If all our negative emotions turned into support, a good, sincere word … If instead of kicking a man while he’s down, we gave him a positive “kick” to rise from the floor, rise to the fight … If we could help each other in searching for solutions, then focused on our way to where we always wanted to be … We could work miracles together!

We like to remind others about KARMA. We know what goes around comes around. But we don’t want to remember that it can come around to us. We don’t want to notice that our words can work as a knife in somebody’s back. Just reminding

I strongly believe in the law of attraction. I believe that positive thinking evokes positive events, and negative thoughts attract misfortune. That’s why I know that wishing someone bad luck can actually cause it. So why not wishing “all the best” for real? Without a fake between the lines? I wish people stopped looking for defects in others and started to see values. After all, we are a combination of people we meet on our way and spend time with. The more happiness and prosperity among them, the more good will happen to us too! Hatred haunts hatred, darkness doesn’t drive out darkness. But the light can do that. Let’s try to bring a flashlight where it’s dark. It’s so simple. It is a pity that people don’t like easy solutions.

I’m not trying to moralize others at the moment. I’m also writing to myself. When I write something down, I feel a commitment to draw conclusions. We are “sloganists”, we throw nice slogans to the wind. “I don’t wish a bad luck to anyone” – that’s my favorite one. However, when an asshole overtakes me on a bend I think: “I wonder which tree he ‘s going to crash into,” and then look around as if I was looking for macabre confirmation that I was right!

We are so small

]]>https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=16590Healthy Habitshttps://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1584&lang=en
https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1584&lang=en#respondWed, 03 Jan 2018 10:06:49 +0000https://serwer1768828.home.pl/autoinstalator/wordpress/?p=1584It will be a long entry for a BIG morning Saturday coffee. But it’s really worth reading!!! It’s possible that we will motivate you to take care of your well-being on a daily basis today. First, however, let’s make it straight: our blog is a diary of our experience, it is NOT a GUIDE and we don’t want it to be perceived as such. Whatever you read in the rest of the post, remember that it is only a world painted with our paints and you don’t have to like it. We aren’t playing roles of wisemen who always know better, we write about ourselves, how we dealt with situations we all experience. There is, however, a truth that professional people emphasize – not the looks, but health is the most important thing. Therefore, the decision to start a diet or physical activity should be motivated by the desire to improve the quality of life and maintain health, not the loss of kilograms. The slimmer silhouette is just a very pleasant side effect of a healthy lifestyle;) Actually, a bathroom scale is an absolutely unnecessary gadget! And not every one of us has to be slim, just be happy! In addition, the muscles are heavier than fat…

Olka

I didn’t become a mother just to have an excuse for gluttony and sitting in front of the TV. That’s why I was driven mad by comments like: “as for a mother of three, you look great.” It’s like what a mother of three children should look like?!?! People thought it was nice to me, and I wondered where the hell it was written that the mother of three should look bad? Why? When you’re pregnant you put on weight, it’s normal. I gained an additional 20 kilograms each time. That’s how it is, we can’t decide on how much weight we gain during pregnancy. I didn’t binge with bread rolls and sweets, I didn’t sit on a couch, I walked a lot, I exercised. But I was gaining additional kilos anyway. This is a matter of individual predispositions. My grandmother had it, her mother as well. My mother also grew a lot bigger when she was pregnant. But after delivery, you have to get back into shape. I was lucky that I was healthy, so nothing disturbed my normal functioning. I didn’t sign up for the gym, I didn’t have a personal trainer. I didn’t even think of exercising, my children didn’t get out of my laps. But I moved and ate. I ate healthily. I was breastfeeding, so it’s obvious that I didn’t gollop pizzas or hamburgers. I didn’t drink coke. That’s all. I returned to my pre-pregnancy weight after two months on average. Ewka was the same. She wasn’t fat for even a moment. I believe that what you look like after the birth of a child, is the matter of your choice (if you exclude health conditions). Of course, the belly needs a few weeks before it gets back to shape, for the first two to three weeks we still look pregnant. I remember when a shop assistant (it was about a week after my last childbirth) made me laugh with the question “how much time for the labor?”. She blushed when I answered that the child was already born. I smiled heartily, I had no reason to feel offended. She asked of pure curiosity.

A few months after the last delivery I noticed that my body didn’t look like before anymore. At the beginning I even planned to come to terms with it, accepting the law of gravity. However, I couldn’t accept that at the age of 30 I would stop being attractive. I had a husband who wanted to have a beautiful, confident and happy wife. I had children who observed me. And I had thoughts in my head about what I wanted to look like and how I wanted to feel. Therfore I decided to fight gravity. I wasn’t at a losing position at all. Women have the power that allows them to stand natural delivery. Compared to this, daily training seems to be a trifle! And that’s how my transformation began, and now has been going on for over two years. I consider my first home workout as a breakthrough in my life. It was a new beginning. Something like switching to “the light side of the force”

Ewka:

I guess my relationship with my husband was never based on the physical affection. Well, this is a conclusion I base on what I see in my husband’s behavior. Patryk never criticizes my looks and it’s not a matter of him accepting me the way I am, but rather a matter of his adjustment skills, haha. For him I always look fine. On the contary, I am honest with those close to me. When I see that he’s becoming plump I don’t pretend I don’t notice it. I tell him honestly that I fell in love with and married a guy that looked better. This is my method of negative motivation.

I have never struggled with serious weight problems. Sometimes I looked a little bigger, then slimmer again. I have never eaten too much, but I didn’t mind fastoods, dumplings, pancakes, etc. The first pregnancy got me 15 additional kilos. However, I got back to my previous looks quite quictly. It required some effort. An effort that I didn’t have the desire to do myself (because I was planning a second child) but Olka didn’t let me stay idly…

After the birth of Dominik, my coffee meetings with Olka took the form of verbal trainings. Olka was already into fitness and nutrition. It seemed to me that also on tv they were only talking about healthy lifestyle. And so Olka, who after her first two labors didn’t care about what her body looked like, and she decided to exercise only three years after the last birth, began to persuade everyone around to train! I had the impression that she demanded it the most from me. I was a year after the childbirth, after the C-section, and I really didn’t have time for exercise, because the child took my whole time. I didn’t demand it from myself, because I looked “normal”, a little more here a little less there. Actually, Olka was full of energy, but every coffee was about one topic – fitness! I’d had enough. Olka will probably learn about it only when he reads it. But seriously, it was crazy – she could practice at the party, on the beach, just everywhere. It was irritating at times, although there was nothing wrong with it. And her constant talk about fitness at some point started to motivate me to take up fitnesss! Then I started my adventure with home workouts. I was not as systematic as Olka was, but I tried. And finally, the talking about nutrition and sport over coffee didn’t make me nervous. Now we both could talk about our fitness achievements!

And my husband? Fortunately, he didn’t mind. He complained sometimes, especially, when he had to take care of Dominik. At some point, henoticed that my face changed and he didn’t like it. I got much slimmer, so did my face. He said I was too skinny. He commented, “look how you lengthened your nose!”, haha. Very funny! At least he didn’t comment on my boobs! The exercises also contributed to the fact that they became much smaller ;(

Now, four months after my daughter was born, my return back to shape has finally become possible. Despite the fact that I still spend most of my time with Weronika in my arms (and when she sleeps I take care of Dominik), in the afternoons when Patryk is at home I have some time for myself. So far I’ve had my first trainings and I’m not going to give up on them!

Olka

I can show off a bit in this part. Not at all about how I sculpted my body or how many kilos I lost. I’ve gone through a long and difficult road to the place where I am now. I struggled in the last two years of training with many things, paradoxically the least with physical effort …

But let’s get back to the beginning.

My first training was inspired by a Facebook post, uploaded by Ewa Chodakowska. Today, I can honestly say that I love this woman because she is a co-author of many positive changes in my life. I surrendered to her positive motivation and decided to do some exercises she suggested. It was spring, I had my first training in the garden. It didn’t seem difficult to me at all, I didn’t even sweat, but all the exercises lasted less than 20 minutes. It was an ideal strategy. The feeling that I can exercise without getting too tired motivated me to the second training, then the third, the fourth … After the first week of daily exercise, I felt lighter by a few kilograms, 50 percent happier and more agile than ever. It was a real WOW effect. In fact I didn’t lose weight yet, and all my muscles ached so much that I could barely walk, but my brain seemed not to notice all this. I was so proud of myself! I already exercised for a week, so I couldn’t give in. After two weeks I thought that I could make it for a whole month. After a month I felt I could move mountains so I continued to train. I extended my trainings to thirty minutes, then to forty-five. I downloaded a few different workout programs to my computer (the internet is a real treasure for fitness freaks like me) so I didn’t get bored, I would do a different program each day.

I will now go back to the first two weeks …

The motivation was huge. I wanted to prove to everybody that my transformation wasn’t just a whim, and that I really wanted to improve my life, that I could be beautiful and young again … I was so pissed when obstacles appeared and I couldn’t complete my workout! It could really cause my uncontrollable aggression. I knew that, so I didn’t let go. I was angry if someone came round with a spontaneous visit in the evening and it disturbed my workout plans. I would then apologize to them politely, hide behind the house and do at least a round of TABATA. My friends began to tease me. I felt pressure in the air and a lot of negative vibrations. It hurt me because I couldn’t understand why they were distancing themselves to me because of those few minutes of my absence during their visits. During the meetings with Ewka, the conversations were mainly about my trainings. My pride was expanding, the level of my satisfaction was probably so high that it restrained my ability to lookaat my behaviour critically!

Actually, I didn’t only talk about it, I just thought about it, I lived it. Ewka tolerated this calmly, she never showed irritation. She’s so kind.

After about a month, I had enough of myself. I even apologized to Ewka for my previous behavior, reassuring her that I just had the first euphoria, and that from that day on it would be different. In fact, as the time was passing, my emotions fell down a little bit. Fortunately, the willingness to do everyday exercises hasn’t disappeared, my optimistic attitude optimism also remained at a high level. I learned how much understanding I can expect from some friends, I refreshed their previously uncritical image in my eyes. I am writing this without regrets, these are only my deep thoughts, it didn’t affect my relationships in a significant way. I just think I learnt a little bit more;) EWKA GOT AN A FROM THE TEST!

My husband also had a hard time with my new passion at the beginning. Exercises from the beginning absorbed huge amounts of my energy, additionally they provided so many happiness hormones that for some timeI wasn’t interested in any romantic matters at all!. And because it lasted well over a month, Marcin began to suspect that I has someone I had the impression that the more my body changed, the less he liked it. One day I asked him directly if he preferred the previous version of me. He made me realize that I completely stopped paying attention to him. I understood what was most important. A cold shower that I truly needed at that time. Happiness should be shared, not praised. I expected him to be delighted with my new, better look, and he just wanted ME to come back.

Today I know that what happened to me then was a natural reaction to an exciting change. The same happens with almost every girl who goes on a diet. My mother had the same when she started to learn English well over fifty, ha ha. I think it is the same mechanism that accompanies love affection or moving to a new home. When life changes for the better, we don’t think about anything else

After this first difficult month, it was only better. Over time, my family members got used to my jumping, panting and sweating, the mat in the living room, dumbbell in the bedroom, and a stepper on the balcony:) All my christmas gifts that year were fitness related, which means that my relatives accepted my new hobby and understood how much joy it gives me. Today my workouts are a natural part of every day. My kids have the opportunity to shout at me for making a mess (I often exercise in Emil’s room, he has a large mirror and a lot of space, almost like in the gym;)) My son likes me in a fitness version. Recently in one of his homeworks he wrote about me: “Mom likes to run a lot and she’s very fit.” If he writes about it, I believe he’s proud of that!

For me, everyday training isn’t an extraordinary thing today. At the same time, following my personal philosophy that everything in life should be done in a way that is comfortable for us, I don’t overchallenge myself. I don’t take an hour of cardio if I am tired or have little time. I can split a 45-minute training for Chodakowska’s ‘6-minute’ short workouts. And if there is such a need, I can completely let go and make myself a day off. I can also do training at 1:00 am, if I still have enough energy However, I don’t recommend such a late training – it’s impossible to fall asleep later until the morning!

Finally – a good news is that home fitness is for free! All you invest in it is your time and energy. This is one of those things that are equally available to very rich and very “poor” people. If you do daily workouts you’re becoming rich anyway – your wealth is a better version of You. And you don’t need to go to the gyms or hire a personal trainer. You don’t need brand-name clothes for your workouts (I often train in underpants and a T-shirt). It is worth rejecting excuses aside and do something absolutely for yourself!